Hundreds rally against cuts to domestic abuse services
Protesters gathered outside Tower Hamlets Town Hall on Thursday to save domestic abuse services with indefinite strikes looming at the end of the week.
Hundreds of people gathered for a rally in Tower Hamlets on the night of Thursday 6 February in support of saving a domestic abuse service from proposed changes which workers say would put victims and survivors at risk.
Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs) working for the charity Solace Women’s Aid in Tower Hamlets are set to begin strike action next Friday (February 14).
The upcoming action marks the first time in history IDVAs have gone on indefinite strike in Britain. A Solace spokesperson previously told the BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) it was merging different funding streams and was looking at plans to explore ‘redeployment opportunities’, but was committed to supporting survivors.
Abu Talha Chowdhury, Cabinet Member for Safer Communities at Tower Hamlets Council said officials and representatives from the Mayor’s Office have met with United Voices of the World union (UVW) and IDVAs to discuss the redundancies being proposed by Solace.
He went on to say that Solace is an independent organisation contracted by the Council, and is not involved in the organisation’s internal structures and staffing.
UVW said the plans could see the team cut by a third and warned that it would have a ‘catastrophic impact’ on its service users.
During last night’s rally which took place outside Tower Hamlets Town Hall, the crowd heard from Solace workers, UVW members, local councillors, Sisters Uncut and Apsana Begum, MP for Poplar and Limehouse.
Ms Begum told the LDRS: ‘I think it’s really important that we try and support these services and these workers to make sure they can have this service and continue to provide support which I have no doubt is absolutely crucial to residents in this borough – not least because we have some of the highest rates of domestic violence reported in London.’
One anonymous worker told the LDRS: ‘It’s heartbreaking because we should be building services, we should be investing in these services rather than taking them away, crime is going to go up and we’re going to have more deaths. It’s going to have an effect on the workers who will be burnt out because you’re setting up a system where we’ll be failing and we won’t be able to provide the best standard of support to the victims.’
Julia Veros, a UVW member who was at the rally to show support, said: ‘We have to do something because this is really, really nasty. There’s a lot of people, especially women and children with domestic violence and we as a society are supposed to do something – how can you leave these people without any help?’
The service, which receives funding from the council, provides free emotional support to high-risk survivors of domestic violence, which includes advocating, referring and providing them with information. Workers help to tackle systemic barriers faced by victims, such as navigating immigration restrictions, and financial and legal challenges.
Tower Hamlets is the second-highest-ranked borough for domestic abuse cases in London. Between April and December 2024, Solace workers managed 1,139 referrals and supported 227 victim-survivors.
Nahar Choudhury, Solace CEO, said: ‘We hope to be able to resolve the dispute, and will continue to make efforts with staff, the union and the commissioner to do so. We believe it is in the best interests of our survivors and staff to find solutions.’
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